HERALDRY 



In course of time the right to use a coat-of-arms 

 became, like the jus imaginum, the distinctive 

 privilege of the noble, the word being used here in 

 the continental sense, analogous to the English 

 Gentleman (q.v. ); and the privilege transmitted 

 to all his descendants in the male line. When a 

 prince made a plebeian noble, as it was competent 

 for him to do, the patent of nobility denned what 

 arms he was to bear. 



In England a proclamation of Henry V. restrained 

 the private assumption of armorial insignia, by 

 prohibiting all who had not borne arms at Agin- 

 court to assume them, except in virtue of inherit- 

 ance or a grant from the crown. On the establish- 

 ment of the Heralds' College (see HERALD) in 1483, 

 the regulation of matters armorial was to a large 

 ' extent delegated to the kings-of-arms and heralds 

 acting under the Earl Marshal. Periodical visita- 

 tions of the different counties were directed to be 

 made to take cognisance of the arms, pedigrees, 

 and marriages of the nobility and gentry of England. 

 These visitations went on at varying periods from 

 1528 down to 1704, and are the principal source of 

 evidence as to the hereditary right to bear arms 

 in England. Among the functions exercised by 

 the English kings-of-arms (the chief of whom is 

 Garter King-of-arms ) are the assigning of appro- 

 priate insignia to persons who have acquired a 

 social importance that entitles them to talce their 

 place among the gentlemen of coat-armour of the 

 country. Lyon King-of-arms, besides being a 

 judicial officer having cognisance of all questions 

 regarding the right to arms, exercises by direct 

 delegation from the crown similar functions in the 

 case of Scotsmen in the way of granting arms to 

 novi homines ; as does Ulster King-of-arms in the 

 case of Irishmen. The wrongful assumption of 

 arms is still in Scotland, if not in England, an 

 act for which statutory penalties can be enforced 

 against the assumer. 



While there is nowhere on the Continent an 

 institution similar to the English Heralds' College, 

 there still exists in Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, 

 Russia, Holland, and Belgium, and some other 

 continental countries, a direct supervision of 

 armorial insignia, which takes place through the 

 chancery of the orders of the kingdom. In Sweden 

 and Norway the abolition of titles of nobility has 

 made the administration of armorial matters more 

 lax, though the preservation of the orders of knight- 

 hood implies a chancery or office of regulation so 

 far as they are concerned. In France there is now 

 no juge d'armes ; and spurious heraldry figures 

 largely on carriages and elsewhere in Paris. In 

 the United States the stars and stripes are said 

 ( erroneously, it would appear ; see FLAG, Vol. IV. 

 p. 665 ) to be derived from the arms of Washington ; 

 and it is not unusual for individuals and families 

 to trace their descent from old-world houses, and 

 to assume the arms proper to their name. So in 

 " the British colonies. 



Not only families, but kingdoms, feudal lord- 

 ships, towns, episcopal sees, abbeys, kings-of-arms 

 in their official capacity, and corporations may by 

 heraldic usage bear arms. The arms of two or 

 more states ruled by one sovereign prince are 

 marshalled together quarterly or otherwise in one 

 escutcheon ; and it has been the practice of many 

 sovereigns to marshal along with their own arms of 

 dominion, arms of territories of which they are not 

 in possession, but to which they claim a right. 

 Thus, England bore the arms of France from the 

 time of Edward III. till 1801 ; and the kings of 

 Naples and of Sardinia were in use to bear the arms 

 of Cyprus and of Jerusalem. Similarly it has been 

 the practice of the Dukes of Athole and Earls of 

 Derby, as having been lords of Man, to quarter the 

 arms of that island ; and feudal coats are borne 



quarterly and en surtout by various peers of Scot- 

 land. As to honourable additions to arms granted 

 by sovereigns, see AUGMENTATION. 



While family arms transmit in the male line to 

 the descendants of the bearer of them, to be borne 

 by cadets with recognised differences, an heiress in 

 the heraldic sense i.e. a daughter who represents 

 her father, conveys her arms to her husband ( pro- 

 vided he be himself a gentleman of coat-armour) 

 to be marshalled in accordance with certain rules 

 ,with his own. Occasionally the arms of a great 

 heiress are allowed altogether to supersede the 

 paternal coat ; and sometimes a successor who is a 

 stranger in blood has been empowered to assume 

 adoptive arms to fulfil the wish of a testator. 



Heraldry is thus, in one of its aspects, a faithful 

 chronicler of the history both of royal dynasties and 

 of private families. Every change in the hereditary 

 succession of a kingdom, every union of two houses 

 by marriage, occasions a corresponding change in 

 the coat-of-arms ; the position which the members 

 of a house occupy in the family tree is duly in- 

 dicated, and an armorial shield is thus a record 

 whose nice distinctions indicate to all who under- 

 stand its language, a number of material facts 

 regarding the owner of it. Heraldry is in this way 

 an aid to the study of history, general and local. 

 It has often afforded the key to questions of dis- 

 puted succession ; and seals, baronial and monu- 

 mental carvings, and shields in church windows, 

 have all been recorded in courts of law as evidence 

 in obscure questions of marriage and descent. 



The Shield. A coat-of-arms is composed of 

 charges depicted on an escutcheon representing the 

 old knightly shield. The word ' escutcheon ' is 

 derived from the French ecusson, which signified a 

 shield with arms on it, in contradistinction from a 

 shield generally. The forms of the shield repre- 

 sented in heraldry, as in war, differed at different 

 times. The actual shields of the llth and 12th 

 centuries were in shape not unlike a boy's kite. 



Fig. I. Shields. 



They were curved to encircle the body, and in 

 some early seals are so represented ; but, after 

 heraldry began to be systematised, we generally 

 find them engraved on seals and monuments as 

 if flattened, to let the armorial design be fully 

 seen. The pear-shape (1, fig. I.) represented in a 

 few early shields, was soon followed by the flat- 

 iron or heater-shape (2), which prevailed in the 

 12th and 13th centuries, with an increasing tend- 

 ency to bulge towards the base, more especially 

 after the introduction of the practice of quartering. 

 When helmet, or helmet and crest, were repre- 

 sented, the shield was often placed in the posi- 

 tion called couche (3), as if suspended from the 

 helmet by the sinister chief angle. Towards the 

 end of the 15th century appeared such forms as 

 4 and 5, where the notch is meant to represent a 

 rest for the knightly lance. In the 16th century 

 the forms used became more florid (6), but 

 with considerable variety. The forms in use in 

 the 17th and still more the 18th century, became 



